Background: Scholarly activity is an important component of academic medicine. Medical schools have traditionally used publications when considering promotion. In previously published studies, academic clinician-educator generalists’ publication productivity was considerably less than that of academic specialists. Prior to 2012, our Department did not have specific scholarly activity promotion requirements for clinician-educations. In an attempt to encourage publication by clinician-educators, our Department announced in 2011 that it would phase in over 3 years, a requirement for 5 scholarly products for promotion to Associate Professor and an additional 5 scholarly products for promotion to Professor. The requirement was fully implemented in 2014. Scholarly products were broadly defined and included manuscripts, abstracts, and peer-reviewed educational products. Hospital medicine faculty were encouraged but not required to apply for promotion. Faculty were generally eligible for promotion to Associate Professor after 5 years, and to Professor after 10 years of service.
Methods: At the time of their annual review, faculty prepare reports that include scholarly activity. We reviewed these reports to calculate yearly totals of abstracts presented at national meetings and publications. Presentations and manuscripts were summed to calculate scholarly productivity. Divisional scholarly productivity/FTE was calculated using FTE as of July 1 each year.
Results: Between 2007 – 2010, the Division’s faculty presented no national abstracts and had only 2 publications. Beginning in 2010, the Division designated 0.1 FTE for a Director of Scholarly Activity who organized a monthly research club, met with Division faculty about faculty development, and provided mentorship for several projects. Additional leadership strategies included regular reports about scholarship at the Division’s monthly business meeting and emphasis of scholarship at the time of annual faculty performance reviews. Scholarly productivity has consistently risen since then. Compared to 2009, by 2014 our faculty’s presentation of national abstracts increased 1400% (0 to 14) and published manuscripts increased 650% (2 to 13) (Figure). Compared to a yearly average for the baseline years 2007 – 2009 before implementation, scholarly productivity/FTE in 2014 rose from 0.04 to 0.91.
Conclusions: Scholarly productivity by our hospital medicine faculty rose dramatically after leadership implemented specific strategies in response to Departmental scholarly product promotion requirements. Compared to five years ago when our faculty’s scholarly productivity was nearly zero, our faculty are now averaging nearly one scholarly product/year.